Why did Donald Trump pardon a Democratic crook like P.G. Sittenfeld?
The answer, according to multiple local political players, can be traced to feud over a seat on the Cincinnati Park Board.
President Business Deals pardoned former Cincinnati Council President P.G. Sittenfeld on Thursday, roughly 19 months after a jury of Sittenfeld’s peers found him guilty on bribery and attempted extortion charges.
Sittenfeld had served 4.5 months on his 16-month sentence before a federal appeals court freed him from a lightweight prison camp in May 2024 while Sittenfeld’s appeals played out in court.
Sittenfeld lost his most recent appeal by a 2-1 decision in February 2025, clearing the way for the unelected and corrupt lizard clique known as the Supreme Court to take up his public corruption case.
Sittenfeld, despite radiating almost lethal levels of “entitled, privately educated dickhead rich kid” particles, wasn’t poor in childhood.
However, the Sittenfeld family does not have anywhere near the wealth required to pay lawyers at the Republican-friendly mega-law firm Jones Day for a criminal defense that aims to establish a Supreme Court precedent that would raise the already newfound high standards to convict scumbag politicians like Sittenfeld of corruption.
According to multiple sources, that financial burden fell upon two wealthy Cincinnati benefactors: David and Dianne Rosenberg:
David, a partner at the KMK law firm in Cincinnati, earned the couple’s money in a decades-long law career focusing on “corporate finance, financial institutions, venture capital and reorganization,” according to his firm’s official biography.
Dianne, meanwhile, has earned a cantankerous reputation while serving on various local boards throughout the years.
“The reputation that Dianne has earned is that, ‘Her money isn’t worth it,’” said one Cincinnati player granted anonymity to speak freely on an influential member of the local ruling class.
“Every nonprofit and philanthropic board she gets put on, she ultimately gets kicked off because she’s so toxic, and they all decide, ‘We can get money somewhere else.’
The source pointed out that Dianne used to serve on “the Cincinnati Symphony Board, a bunch of Jewish community boards, etc.
“She’s not on [any of those] anymore.”
Dianne is also unsurprisingly leading the charge to “save Hyde Park,” the most affluent Cincinnati neighborhood, from the nightmare of dense development in the form of an apartment complex and hotel.
According to multiple Cincinnati sources, the Rosenbergs have been in marriage counseling for years. But they have found common cause in Sittenfeld.
Sittenfeld appears to have earned the couple’s undying loyalty when he mustered the bravery to abstain from a vote to boot Dianne from the Cincinnati Park Board at the behest of then-Cincinnati mayor John Cranley in January 2018.
From Paula Christian of wcpo.com:
CINCINNATI -- The political feud over a seat on the Cincinnati Park Board came to an end on Wednesday, with Dianne Rosenberg losing the position she sued Mayor John Cranley to keep.
It was uncertain whether Cranley could get the five votes he needed from Cincinnati City Council to replace Rosenberg with his ally and fiscal watchdog, Jim Goetz.
But in a 5-2 vote, council approved Goetz to the park board, with David Mann, Amy Murray, Greg Landsman, Christopher Smitherman and Jeffrey Pastor voting yes.
No votes came from council members Chris Seelbach and Tamaya Dennard. Councilman Wendell Young was absent and Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld said he abstained.
The Rosenbergs had previously supported then-councilman Greg Landsman until the future U.S. Congressman sided with then-Mayor Cranley in that blood feud.
According to one source, Sittenfeld encouraged Dianne to sue over the loss of the board membership, which she did. Even though she lost that fight, Sittenfeld earned her “undying loyalty.”
The Rosenbergs’ infatuation with Sittenfeld has seemingly gone beyond the scope of a filthy rich couple taking a shine to a low-rent politician who, at one time, was favored to become the mayor.
Multiple sources likened Sittenfeld to the son the Rosenbergs never had, especially after an ongoing estrangement from their only child, an adult daughter who lives in Massachusetts.
That’s evident in their willingness to bankroll Sittenfeld’s defense all the way to the Supreme Court, and it’s why they’re central players in the burning question: Why, exactly, did the notoriously “transactional” Trump pardon a Democratic crook who said several mean things about our con artist of a president?
According to one well-connected Cincinnati Republican, the answer is that the Rosenbergs purchased the pardon with cryptocurrency.
“That is apparently how pardons are purchased these days,” the Republican said.
The Trump Administration is infamously pro-cryptocurrency, which, for all its alleged benefits, would theoretically allow a disgustingly rich couple like the Rosenbergs to make an off-the-books payment to a corrupt administration, if that were a thing they were hypothetically interested in doing.
I presented this idea to a prominent Cincinnati Democrat: “That’s exactly what I think happened,” they said.
David Rosenberg coincidentally graduated from the prestigious Wharton School of Business in 1971—three years after the future-president Trump earned his degree. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that they knew each other while attending the small university.
Added all together, it’s far from a smoking gun, in large part due to actors more intelligent than Sittenfeld who can easily avoid being caught on an FBI wiretap, almost literally accepting a bash of cash with “BRIBE” emblazed across the burlap.
But when mortal political enemies agree on a working theory, I pay attention. Because it’s a theory that makes more sense than Trump feeling that the Sittenfeld verdict was a miscarriage of justice.
As for what’s next for Sittenfeld… it’s hard to say, though he’ll no longer be able to claim “vindication” as he would have been if the Supreme Court had agreed that accepting bribes impugned his right to freedom of speech in a verdict that would have also inevitably freed disgraced Speaker Larry Householder, who doesn’t have wealthy benefactors like the Rosenbergs funding his criminal defense.
Sittenfeld still has roughly $800,000 in his political campaign account, which is an eye-popping amount for a local politician. He could, theoretically, still wield a massive amount of influence through those political donations, should any Cincinnati politician be foolish enough to accept that poisoned cash. It’s also enough to seed a future political campaign in its own right.
But even in the best light, the Rosenbergs offer a startling example of how one demented rich couple can influence our political system without ever facing any sort of public scrutiny.
We’re living in the golden age of corruption thanks in large part to rich fucks just like them.
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